


Just a Flesh Wound

by M_Moonshade



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Deaf Character, EasterLily-92, F/M, Librarians, Nazi Nurse, Pre-Canon, Some Swearing, tumblr inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:25:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/M_Moonshade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil's brother went to the Library. He hasn't been to school in a few days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a Flesh Wound

**Author's Note:**

> Simon (Cecil’s brother) is Nazi-Nurse’s interpretation. This fic was inspired by a nearly-fic-in-itself prompt by EasterLily-92: Simon steals a book from the library and battles librarians for a book about American Sign Language so that he can communicate with Simone.
> 
> I’ll be frank: I’m not up-to-snuff on deaf culture and was writing this in lieu of doing homework, so my research was… nonexistent at best. Please let me know if I made any mistakes and I’ll be sure to fix them. Or, if you prefer, imagine that the Night Vale school board (which thinks wheelchair ramps are for quitters) has some unusual ideas about handling deaf students.

Simon isn’t in school on Tuesday. Or Wednesday, either.

It’s not like they haven’t cut class before, but usually they meet up at school first and skip together. And two days in a row? Alone? It’s just plain strange.

Steve asks around— the other kids in school have little patience for the dry-erase board she carries— but nobody’s seen him. It’s only when Steve confronts the school’s other snow-haired student that they finally get answers.

Cecil tends to mumble and look around when he speaks, and so Simone can glean even less from the sight of his lips than usual, but she gathers enough, and Steve confirms her fears: Simon was taken home from the hospital this morning.

She doesn’t wait to find out any more. When the other students start milling back to their next classes, she races from the school building. Anyone else might not have managed the minefield or electric fence, but she and Simon and Steve have cut class enough times— they know all the tricks, and they’ve invented a few more. She’s out in the open in minutes.

Her legs are screaming in pain by the time she arrives at the Palmer house, but she’s made record time— Coach al-Mujaheed would be proud. She doesn’t even give herself time to catch her breath before she throws herself on the trellis and climbs to Simon’s window.

The glass is cold and unforgiving as she bangs against it, the image obscured by thick blackout curtains.

Her pulse beats wildly in her throat. _Please let him be okay. Please please please let him be okay._

Finally the window draws back, and she nearly falls from the trellis.

It’s Simon. He’s heavily bruised, with butterfly-bandages holding together wide gashes across his face and arms, and mummy-like wrappings covering an alarming amount of his body. Hastily he opens the window, though his splinted fingers fumble with the latch, and pulls her inside.

She tumbles off the windowsill and sprawls across his floor, and he limps to her side.

“Simone?” He enunciates clearly, his lips expressive and easy to understand. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

He looks shocked and exhausted and confused— too much to get snarky or indifferent.

She opens her dry-erase marker so violently the cap flies across the room.

WHAT DO YOU THINK, ASSHOLE? she scribbles. YOU ALMOST GOT YOURSELF MURDERED BY LIBRARIANS!

“Nah.” He waves her off. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

_Don’t you Monty Python me, you ass._

59 STITCHES! She underlines it seven or eight times for emphasis, but they turn into squiggles. Her hands are shaking. Her legs feel like overcooked noodles. She turns over and flops onto her back on the floor. Simon sinks down beside her, angled just enough that she can see his face. But she isn’t going to give him the attention. The douchebag scared her half to death, dammit!

But her averted eyes land on his bedside table. At the books stacked haphazardly there.

She goes suddenly cold, in a way that has nothing at all to do with the adrenaline leaving her system. It feels like the marrow has come alive and is trying to crawl out of her bones.

Simon follows her stare and stumbles to his feet, stuffing the books under his pillow, but it’s too late. She’s already seen.

They’re books on sign language. Manuals. Dictionaries. A good half dozen of them.

There’s a reason why Simone uses a dry erase board instead of hoping her friends will learn the language: the ASL section of the Library is in the southeast corner of the third floor— immediately overlooking the Librarians’ bone-lined nests. The single most dangerous place in the building. One or two books, Simon might have found by a stroke of luck— perhaps they might have come unshelved while a Librarian was devouring one of its latest victims— but _six_?

Six wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t luck. It was deliberate, and stupid, and downright suicidal.

There are tears in her eyes when she turns her gaze back to Simon. His lips are pulled into a tight line. His brow is furrowed in concentration. And he lifts his hands in slow, clumsy sign:

_You should see the other guy._


End file.
